Volunteering for Habitiat for Humanities12 '11; Souper Bowl '11

In my opinion, one of the best things about being in a guild, is the opportunity to use my talents for the betterment of my community.  This year the Habitat for Humanity in Georgetown has asked the members of the Seacoast Artists Guild to volunteer their skill set in painting Soup bowls.

Yes that's right...  my husband, Bruce is painting a fired bisque ware bowl .

His and five hundred other one of a kind bowls will be sold  at

the Habitat for Humanity  fundraiser known as Souper bowl.

People purchase a ticket to get into the event, where they can choose on of the hand-painted

and then the can select from a dozen or more soups being offered ( in Styrofoam cups) by the local restaurants who are also volunteering their services.   All of the proceeds go toward building new homes for those in need in the Georgetown County.

Wooden Boat Show in Georgetown SC 10 '11

 Wooden Boat Show held third weekend in Oct  is one of the nation's premier wooden boat exhibits. These activities all take place on the waterfront and in Historic Downtown Georgetown. Some of my most popular paintings have come from reference photos I have taken at this event in previous years.

North Front Street exhibits

 Much of the activity takes place on the North and South ends of Front Street in Georgetown SC

South Front Street exhibits

 The street scene  features wooden boat exhibits, a boat building competition, kid's model boat building, boat raffles, maritime arts & crafts, food and music including a booth where my friend Maria Delaney has were work on display.

Art for sale

Georgetown Harbor

 One block away,  Georgetown's  River front  is a hoping place as well  with  boat tours

Two Mast

 Historic boats

A local shrimp boat

 Working vessels

 And long boat oaring lessons

You can learn more about Georgetown's  Wooden Boat Show at http://woodenboatshow.com/

Georgetown Lighthouse 2 '11

I  recently took a boat tour of South Carolina's Winyah Bay.  The tour included a visit to North Island and its  Georgetown Lighthouse.  I was so impressed with the history of the place that I decided to paint a picture of the lighthouse for my local landmark series. 

Georgetown Lighthouse 12"x9" oil

Her's my rendition of  the Georgetown Lighthouse.

and here's a photo  from the University of North Carolina of the  the lighthouse.

 By way of background....Georgetown Harbor, located in Wynyah Bay  between North and South Islands, is the second largest seaport in South Carolina.  Safe passage into the harbor is now, and as it always has been,  critical to the local economy.  In 1789, Revolutionary War Patriot Paul Trapier donated a tract of land on North Island for the establishment of the Georgetown Lighthouse.  (aka North Island Lighthouse.)  The seventy-two-foot, pyramidal tower, constructed of Cypress wood, was finished in the early part of 1801 Besides the tower, a two-story keeper’s dwelling was built along with a tank for holding the whale oil that fueled the lighthouse’s lamp. The wooden tower’s life was cut short by a violent storm in 1806.

Several years passed before a replacement structure was built. A marble plaque positioned above the door records the names of those who undertook the work on the tower and records the year of its erection as 1811. This time the seventy-two-foot tower was constructed of brick, greatly reducing the chance that those big, bad gales which plague the area (aka hurricanes) would blow the lighthouse down. The staircase that spirals upwards inside the stout brick tower is made of stone. In 1857, the tower was modified to display a fourth-order Fresnel lens. 

When the Civil War broke out, the Confederates used the Georgetown Lighthouse as a lookout station, until Union forces captured it in May of 1862. The lighthouse was heavily damaged during the North-South conflict, and as part of the post-war repair work, the tower was heightened to eighty-seven feet.  The Georgetown Lighthouse was manned until 1986, when the Coast Guard automated the light.

As stipulated in the will of former Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, South Island and all of North Island, save the lighthouse acreage, was bequeathed to the South Carolina Heritage Trust, creating the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Preserve.  In 2001, the lighthouse property was added to the preserve.  This is a rare early federal lighthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and with it now under state control, the tower will hopefully be restored and one day open to the public.  The 1-story brick keeper's house, brick oilhouse (1890), and boathouse (1894) are also preserved

Guild, Guild and More Guild meetings 9 '10

All of the low country  Art Guilds seem to go into hibernation throughout the heat of the summer.  Come September, every last one of them are in a race to make up for lost time.  This past week has been a series of seemingly non-stop meetings  about upcoming exhibitions, shows, training, workshops, and fund-raising events.  It's a bit exhausting, but a lot of fun as well.

The month started off with an exhibition at the Prevost Gallery/Rice museum which was  sponsored by the Georgetown Watercolor Society. This event was followed  by the group's monthly meeting ... a video training workshop watched in the luxury of leather arm chairs.

That same weekend the Charleston Art Guild held its jury-in process, then two days later its monthly members meeting.  About half of CAG's 400+ members showed up to vote on changes to the Guild by-laws,

 

and watch a demonstration of palette knife painting by artist, Jim Pratt.

The CAG  meeting wasn't all serious business..   We got a hilarious Chippendale- like demonstration of how the Guild's fund-raising calendar "Southern Exposures" was made.

 

Not to be outdone by the Charleston Guild's strip tease, the Waccamah Arist Craftsmen Guild's monthly meeting featured a wet t-shirt contest... AKA -  Acrylic Sand Resist  workshop.  What fun!

The Sea Coast Artist Guild also held a heavily attended  monthly meeting the same week .

Our speaker was  the art director of the Chapin Museum, who gave an enlightening presentation on how she creates exhibits . 

 who gave an enlightening presentation on  the history of the museum how she creates exhibits .

This group is very civic-minded , so almost half the meeting was taken up with upcoming fundraisers..  book sales, logo shirts, mini canvases to be sold at Christmas,and of course  a luncheon held the next day at a local pastaria.  Pass the vino , please!

The door prize was a painting completed on the spot by Barney Slice..

Egret in the Morning 8 '10

 Egret in the Morning

Fall is a busy time of year for me. In addition to feeding the Island Gallery ten new paintings a  month,  have a lot of independent  art shows coming up in the next couple of months. I just took one large painting to the Prevost Gallery in Georgetown, and have two other shows to enter next month.  Most of  the local art organizations only allow one juried entry per show,  but one up-coming show allows three entries.  The thing is -- that show is being held in the center court of shopping mall.  I'm disappointed.  In the past the show has always been held in an art gallery.  The art organization that is sponsoring the exhibit decided that rent was less expensive and the works would get more visibility if the show was out in the open.  I am not so sure that was wise.  I suspect that most shoppers associate center court mall vendors with  low quality/cost items.  Not the best way to attract a well heeled buyer.  Plus the work is more at risk from inquisitive greasy fingered kiddies.  I'll have to think carefully about what to put in that show  (if I enter it at all).

Georgetown Watermedia Society Meeting 11 '09

The Georgetown Water media Society met today for a presentation by two of our members on painting with Acrylic paints. Diann  Hammett led off  the presentation with a discussion of how she approaches  abstract and more traditional representational artwork  and the pros and cons of using acrylic paints in both.

This was followed by another member who  showed us how she uses acrylic paintings in  traditional subjects like this study of her son sitting on the beach

She then explained that as a buzy mother of several children she cannot spend as much time as she would like in the studio.  She maximizes her time, by painting on round table-tops that can be fitted onto the steering wheel of her car while she is waiting for her children to finish their  little league practice etc.  Needless to say the fast drying quality of acrylics is a real boon  under such circumstances.

Above:Initial pidgeon desgin on tabletop with small travel acrylic set shown in plastic bag on table. 

Below: Completed painting of pidgeon.

How clever!

Hidden Park in the middle of Winyaw Bay Aug '09

East Bay Park is a Georgetown County City Park  which sits near the end of  a peninsula which juts out into the middle of Winyaw Bay. The park is an open grassy area  which is used for  funtions like farmers markets, soccer matches, and  other out of door gatherings.  The area around the grass  surrounded by parking lot. Which seems at first glance  to be all there is to the place.

Then one day I was loading  purchases from the farm stands into the car and noticed a man with a fishing pole follow a small trail from the end of the parking lot into the marsh. Hmmm! Is there more to this place than I knew about?

Curious, I followed the same narrow trail as the man before us.

It led through the marsh grasses to a small wooden bridge which crossed the march and brought me very close to  many  beautiful marsh birds.

Then I found ourselves on a small pine tree covered island at the very tip of the peninsula. 

The island  while unknown to us is obviously well known to local fishermen.  It has a a picnic shelter with a fish cleaning station, and lots of places along the banks where it is clear that angles hang out regularly.  It also has some remarkable views of the Winyaw Bay.

  Definitely a good place to check out the sunrise and would be a good place to do some plein air painting or photography with a friend or two.